How a US-Based Regional Logistics Company Ditched Oversized Enterprise Software and Cut T&E Costs by 61% with ExpenseAnywhere Express
A Denver-based third-party logistics provider specializing in time-sensitive regional freight, last-mile delivery coordination, and temperature-controlled pharmaceutical transport operates across 34 states with 12 regional distribution hubs and a highly mobile workforce of 310 full-time employees and 140 independent contractors. The logistics provider’s expense and travel management challenge is unique to the SME logistics context: high transaction volume, a largely non-desk workforce, and a finance team of just four people managing all back-office operations.
Their journey to ExpenseAnywhere® Express was a journey through failure – failure of oversized enterprise platforms that assumed a finance infrastructure they simply did not have, and failure of undersized consumer-grade tools that couldn’t handle the company’s operational complexity. By the time their COO initiated the search for a new solution in early 2024, the company had already abandoned two of the market’s most well-known travel expense management platforms – one after 14 months and the other after 7 months, and had reverted to manual spreadsheets as a stopgap. The direct financial cost of those failed implementations, including licensing fees, implementation consulting, and staff time, was estimated at $128,000.
Major Roadblocks & Opportunities
The decision to switch from one of the market’s most well-known travel expense management platforms was not made lightly. The firm’s CFO commissioned a comprehensive review that documented the following persistent, unresolved issues with their existing provider:
The total estimated annual cost of these failures, including staff time, error correction, write-offs, and reimbursement delays, was quantified by the internal audit at $1.9 million.
Our Solution
ExpenseAnywhere deployed a fully integrated reloadable prepaid card solution across all 140 care centers, providing each location with dedicated, center-specific PurchaseAnywhere® VISA prepaid business cards funded directly from entity-specific bank accounts, ensuring complete separation of funds across the organization’s joint venture entities.
Core capabilities included:
Business Impact
Within six months of deployment, the logistics provider achieved results that dwarfed anything the company had experienced with prior platforms:
84% faster implementation
Completed in 17 days compared to 11 weeks with legacy platforms and 3 weeks with other expense tools
$18,000
saved
In external implementation consulting costs through a zero-cost deployment model
87%
reduction
In finance staff hours for T&E processing from 242 hours to 31 hours monthly
83%
reduction
In average reimbursement cycle from 19+ days to just 3.2 days
61% to 98.3% improvement
In policy compliance rate for submitted expense reports
$128,000
avoided
In failed implementation write-offs from prior platform deployment attempts
61%
reduction
In annual T&E platform total cost of ownership from $128,000+ to $49,200
Over 80%
faster
In contractor payment cycles reduced from 30–45 days to just 5–7 days
3 days
faster
In month-end close for expense-related accounting entries from 3.5 days to 0.5 days
+80 point
improvement
In employee satisfaction for the T&E process from NPS -18 to +62
The contrast between the logistics provider’s experience with large enterprise travel and expense software platforms and ExpenseAnywhere® Express was stark not just in cost, but in organizational fit. Where other platforms required the company to adapt its operations to the platforms’ assumptions about company structure, ExpenseAnywhere® Express was configured around the logistics provider’s actual workflows, including its unique per diem routing requirements, multi-entity contractor structure, and lean finance team, within days, not months.
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About ExpenseAnywhere Corporation
We are a global leader in AI-powered corporate spend automation, offering end-to-end solutions for travel & expense automation, invoice automation, prepaid or debit card automation, and mileage automation. Our platform empowers enterprises to eliminate manual processes, ensure policy compliance, and gain real-time financial visibility across every transaction.
